Freedom of Speech in Canada - Danish Cartoons of Muhammad

I went to Uni with Ezra Levant. He is a good man. He is a proponent of freedom which affects us all. It was interesting to see that he has been attacked so viciously for printing the famous Danish Cartoons of Muhammad. I am not a fan of Rex Murphy, but if he can support Ezra, we should all have a second look.

So I ask, how can we have freedom of speech when we have to worry about government imposed persecution or radical muslims killing you?

Ezra Levant is the No. 1 advocate for, and defender of, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of thought in modern Canada. His story, and the reason he has written Shakedown, began with the now famous Danish "Mohammed" cartoons.

In Calgary, an imam, who claims to be a descendant of Mohammed — having first tried to have Levant arrested — made a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
...Levant didn't bend or break. Therein lies this tale.

Now, some people do not like Levant's style. They say he is too aggressive, too noisy and assertive, that he courts controversy and publicity. They should read Shakedown, and they will quickly realize that anyone less "aggressive" or "noisy" would have long ago been suffocated by the remorseless, inequitable, taxpayer-funded, bureaucratic grinding of Canada's human rights tribunals and commissions.

On the matter of his alleged taste for controversy and publicity, again, after reading Shakedown, they will realize that without his ability to withstand controversy and generate publicity, an insidious and largely unaccountable process of diminishing the central concepts of our democracy — freedom of speech, press and thought — would largely have gone unnoticed, and what is far worse, unchallenged.

Next there is the matter of Levant's politics. He is a stalwart conservative, a Harper supporter....

But in judging the cause that he has for three years now championed, and the gruelling effort he has been forced to put in to defend that cause, of which Shakedown is both the diary and the rationale, partisanship should have zero leverage over judgment.

...And he has — with courage and no little cost — stood up to them in a manner so straightforward and clear that he is positively un-Canadian. On this issue — Liberal, New Democrat, Conservative, Green — it should matter not. Were he to elope tomorrow with Jane Fonda, he would still be right, and I would still support him in this matter.

It's very much worth noting here that while Levant's personal politics may have stayed the enthusiasm of Liberals and New Democrats for giving him the support in his fight he clearly deserves, they haven't carried an opposite dividend. Where has Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper been on this issue? It is a cause of deepest principle. It isn't just a Tory thing. But Harper has been craven on the subject.

...I read Shakedown and I am awed at Levant's persistence and powers of endurance.

Aside from the rigours of defending himself over three years, at costs that exceed $100,000 (for a complaint withdrawn almost on a whim toward the end of that marathon), he has also been sued on numerous occasions by his opponents, by members of the Canadian Human Rights Commission itself, and he has been put under a hail of complaints to the Alberta Law Society — in an effort to have him, for all his pains, disbarred.

In any other society, what Levant has endured would be seen and spoken of for what it is: a persecution. I wonder why the lawyers of Canada, particularly those of Alberta, have not seen this blizzard of lawsuits and complaints to the Law Society for what they are: attempts to shut Levant down by other means, payback for being "noisy" and "assertive" and "controversial" and refusing to accommodate the soft tyranny (not so "soft" now that I think of it) of provincial and federal tribunals and commissions.

...Some of the particular cases he details — the case of the lesbian hecklers at the comedy club; the case of the Wiccan working at Boston Pizza who didn't like the rock music in the kitchen; the case of the Self-Medicating Pot Smoker who wanted to smoke in the doorway of Gator Ted's, a Burlington, Ont., pub, even though the patrons didn't like it and in Ontario there are those "smoke-free" regulations, leaving the owner of Gator Ted's on the prongs of two bureaucratic forks — are simultaneously absurd and frightening, Kafka dipped in Wodehouse. Welcome to the strange new world of political correctness roaming the landscape, seeking whom it may devour.

Levant has been mocked, pilloried, sued, harassed and abused — yet he soldiers on. It is but just to note that he had one great help along the way. That came, inadvertently, when his cause commingled with the complaints made to three human-rights commissions against Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine by Mohamed Elmasry. That brought a second hero of real Canadian human rights into the lists against the abridgement of free speech, Steyn, who contributes a foreword to the book.

...Ezra Levant's Shakedown, and his three-year advocacy, have been the "blast of the trumpet" against this trespass. And we should be grateful for his effort. Support him, too. Buy the book.

Galen, your exactly the type of bigot that Murphy derides. Maybe you should re-read the article, because you're part of the problem, not part of the solution. Newsflash: not all atheists are fiscally and socially on the left, and neither are all those who fight for freedom. Assuming so is no different from the bigotry of theists who paint all atheists as immoral. Personally, I'm going to go buy Ezra Levant's book today on the way home from work.

Well Glen, the only people standing up to the Cdn Human Rights Commissions were Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn. Nobody else had the balls to do so.
The entire "left" in Canada not only joined the braying against these two, but didn't say a word against the HRCs.
Yet today, the entire country, outwith the PMO it seems, is united in agreeing that HRCs are undemocratic. Even the HRCs themselves have declared Section 13 invalid, and if parliament doesn't have the balls to strike it down, they are going to ignore it.
None of this would have happened if Steyn and Levant hadn't had the balls to point out that The Emperor Has No Clothes. So rather than clinging to ideology, I have no problem commending Steyn and Levant on topics where they are correct, and their critics are wrong.

While I think Levant is correct in the case of free speech and I don't think that his other positions should necessarily be used to reduce the correctness of this one position, I do think you're out of line stereo-typing the entire "left" as you do.

Anyway, I do think that the HRCs have over-stepped their bounds and I do think we have become way too politically correct, especially in regards to religion. This doesn't just apply to those muslims who got bent out of shape over these cartoons, but also to other religions. I wouldn't be surprised if a group of christians got bent out of shape if something similar happened to them.

And I'd label myself as pretty far to the left

And Glenn Beck is a nutcase, Levant should consider how it looks that he'd go on that nut case's show. It does nothing to improve his image

Hi Sara.
"While I think Levant is correct in the case of free speech and I don't think that his other positions should necessarily be used to reduce the correctness of this one position,"
Exactly. So credit where credit is due.
"I do think you're out of line stereo-typing the entire "left" as you do."
Well, I've followed the entire situation. MacLeans, Steyn, and Levant were lone voices. The entire rest of the media was silent. Today, the opposite is the case. Indeed, the only place NOT howling for the elimination of Section 13 is, ironically, the PMO. Harper was certainly against it when out of politics, yet now that he is PM he is doing nothing. Hypocritical at best, pathetic and weak at worst.
I am impressed by the Calgary imam who, through this process, has learned what "offended" means, has withdrawn his complaint, and basically admitted that he was wrong. That takes courage and honesty. Cheers.